Copying vs. Learning

Learn from the best. It's a simple concept and one that has pervaded throughout all varieties of industries in any capitalistic society. Apple's iPhone was the first smartphone for the masses, not just the businessmen, and three years later we have all varities of smartphones, many taking important cues from Apple (like multi-touch displays) or trying to improve their design. Kobe Bryant frequently states how he studies and learns from the NBA's most legendary players to improve his own game. In debating new bills, lawmakers frequently make references to how the core elements have already played out in certain states or foreign nations. Citizen Kane is often credited as being the greatest film of all time, not because it was so jaw-droppingly entertaining, but because of the myriad technical and cinematic tricks that it first introduced and are now standard in any Hollywood production. It is an important part of any competitive practice to study the best that's been done, emulate it as best you can, and then build on those key traits in an original way. When it comes to game design, however, many developers shy away from borrowing ideas laid out in other games, and for those that do, many are derided for being copycats.

Darksiders' protagonist, War (center).

In January 2010, an upstart studio called Virgil Games partnered with publisher THQ to release an original game called Darksiders. The game was an original take on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with a comic book-inspired art design and a semi-open world with linear objectives. When Darksiders hit shelves, it arrived to mixed reviews. The game was heralded as being fun and well-designed, but took several knocks for being a copycat of God of War or The Legend of Zelda. These criticisms weren't directed at specific shortcomings, but merely by the fact that Virgil Games didn't reinvent the wheel with entirely new mechanics from the top down. Nevermind that there has never been a game to bear any sort of resemblance to the critically-acclaimed Zelda series before this. Nevermind that the elements Virgil borrowed were just that--elements, not entire gameplay ideas or concepts. From the game's announcement, Virgil had stated that they were attempting to make a game in the Zelda mold, with an emphasis in combat that would bring it close to God of War, yet featuring an entirely new, well thought out, and imaginative universe. But to some reviewers, that meant little; Darksiders was just a copycat of Zelda or God of War that was simply not as good.

Trucks and Skulls: look familiar?

My question for these "critics," to which I cannot fathom an answer, is why? Surely there are more egregious copycats out there that are deliberately trying to steal someone else's idea and make a quick buck off it. Just head to the App Store and look at Trucks and Skulls, a total facsimile of the breakout hit Angry Birds, albeit with a thin layer of fresh paint. But Darksiders was no Trucks and Skulls. It borrowed gameplay elements, sure, but not only did they do it from multiple, entirely different games, but they meshed them in new ways in an entirely new and compelling presentation. Virgil Games was pretty upfront that Zelda and God of War were serving as inspirations for their game--and there is nothing wrong with that. At all. Especially when you consider that these are two of the most heralded franchises in all of gaming. Virgil--a new studio headed by a guy named Joe Madureira who was completely new to the medium--was simply learning tricks from the best in the business and applying them to an entirely original concept and idea. To criticize Virgil for this is completely missing the point.

That is not to say there aren't "real" copycats out there. Dante's Inferno and the recent Medal of Honor reboot bear some pretty uncanny resemblances to God of War and Call of Duty, respectively, and it's pretty likely that these games were cases of trying to get in on the cash cow. But even in these examples, its unfair to write these games off as simple copycats. While the gameplay in Dante's Inferno feels like it was literally pulled straight out of the God of War games, it does bring a unique element to the table in that its story and level design are actually interpretations of a famous literary work (Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy). So, in that sense, Dante's Inferno is only a half copycat. But in this case, given the incredible similarities in the gameplay alone (really, you need to play both and you'll see its almost exactly the same combat mechanics, buttons, moves, etc), it would be fair to criticize DI's gameplay as been a less glorious rip-off of GoW's. In the case of Medal of Honor, the similarities to Call of Duty's Modern Warfare sub-series are even more egregious--and fair for criticism--but the development team at Danger Close did try their own spin on the formula by using a real conflict in Afghanistan as a setting rather than an entirely fictional one. So, while examples of "copying" do exist, Darksiders is nowhere near what these two games did, and should not be criticized in the same way.

Heavy Rain's innovative control scheme allows for more cinematic
experiences--and needs to be applied by other developers.

In fact, it's almost as if game developers doesn't do enough copying. Sure, there are the examples listed above, and there have been other attempts at straight-up copying an idea. But few developers try to do what Virgil Games actually did, which is to set out to to copy or one-up, but rather to study, learn, and apply in a new and interesting way. There are some pretty well-established gameplay models that would absolutely flourish in other settings, other stories, etc. We saw a glimpse of this potential last year when Rockstar took its own award-winning Grand Theft Auto mechanics and applied them to a Wild West setting in Red Dead Redemption. They obviously tweaked various aspects to fit the setting, timeline, and story, but the hallmarks of GTA were clearly evident. In many ways this is similar to what Virgil was doing with Darksiders, and, frankly, is a practice that more developers should be looking into. After all, how many gamers heralded the innovative gameplay of last year's Heavy Rain, but hated its core story? That game's developer, Quantic Dream, have already stated they are moving on to the next innovative idea and technology, so in their place, who wouldn't want to see a new game take Heavy Rain's mechanics and apply them in wholly original ways? Or, why not take elements from those mechanics and use them to enhance certain parts of other games? The industry holds a wealth of great gameplay mechanics, great ideas, great interactive elements and ways of engaging the player... developers just need to do a better job of learning from each other. And the so-called "critics" need to back off on their jaded criticism and allow new minds to tackle old ideas.

The Growing Dichotomy of Game Design

There is something happening in the industry of video games. It has been a fissure that has been growing steadily wider the past decade or so and will only continue to widen further in the future. The change it brings has ramifications for fundamental design, for the way games will be sold and marketed, and even for the way they are played. It boils down to the central philosophy driving the game's creation. And, in layman's terms, this dichotomy can be boiled down to two things: is the game focused on story or play mechanics?

The heights of realistic graphical and audio quality that today's consoles are capable of has enabled story and narrative to take a more central role in many of today's games. However, certain game genres--for example, puzzle, fighting, and racing games--are built entirely around the "fun" of their mechanics and any story is usually superfluous and unimportant (or even nonexistent). On the other side of the coin, you have games that are starting to rival Hollywood movies in story quality, production value, and creative talent like Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, and Uncharted. While these games take varying lengths of steps toward being "more movie-like", they all retain the common denominator that the medium's intrinsic interactive qualities are integral to the way the story is experienced. That is to say, the fact that you, the player, are directly impacting the story is a key differentiator between movies and games and is still a defining aspect of these "story-focused" games; the difference is, it's not the only defining aspect.

Heavy Rain's revolutionary control scheme brings a new dimension to interacting with the game's story.

In fact, play mechanics are just as important to "story" games as "mechanic" games. As Epic Game's lead designer Cliff Bleszinski just so happened to say today on Twitter,

"If you have a great game with a bad story you still have a great game. If you have a bad game with a great story you still have a bad game. [But] if you have a great game with a great story then you have a classic."

To understand this, you must recognize that the emergence of story as a central element in many modern games is a relatively new phenomenon since in the old days story was very much an afterthought and what always came first were the mechanics. Furthermore, the thing that makes a game a game is the fact that interactivity is central to the experience...and interactivity is achieved via play mechanics. That being said, the few developers that have dipped their toes in the vast ocean of great narratives have opened whole new doors of possibilities.

The added dimension of interactivity means games are capable of stories that no other medium is, and by combining great game design on a mechanics level with the high quality narrative, characterization, and production values of movies, the door is open for fantastic new experiences to emerge. Games like BioShock have already played with the notion of interactivity as a central element to the game's story. Games like Mass Effect give your individual decisions a ripple effect that shows ramifications through the entire game's world--or multiple games' worlds--and affects your path through the story and the way other characters react to you. Games like Uncharted are more exciting than any summer blockbuster at the movie theaters because of the fact you are participating in the action, while witty writing and strong voice acting bring the story to a more personal level.

The way you've acted as Commander Shepard decides whether or not Wrex lives in Mass Effect.

But not all games strive for these goals--and not all need to. There is room in the market for games that merely want to do what games were originally designed to do without all this fancy schmancy new age story business. Fighting games in particular excel at using the idiosyncratic fighting mechanics to drive competitiveness in the players. Racing games center themselves around two simple things: driving cars really fast and being the first one to the finish line. These games don't need canonical explanations; they simply need to be fun. And that's just fine. Even some games that do have stories, like the Call of Duty series, are not necessarily trying to push the envelope of interactive storytelling, and are arguably designed with a gameplay-is-the-only-important-thing philosophy--not that you can blame them given the fact that the multiplayer (arguably a separate "mechanics" game) is so important to their sales.

SoulCalibur IV doesn't need a story to be really fun.

This is the divergence we are seeing in game design today. Some games are simply going to try to push the fun factor of what games can do. Some games are going to push the artistic envelope of what ways they can use interactivity to tell an engaging story. Similarly, when gamers want to play a certain game, they'll often do it because a) they love its mechanics or b) they love its story. It's not a matter of one design philosophy "winning" over another, it's about the way they coexist and feed off each other. Mass Effect 2 is a great example, learning from the cover-based gunplay of Gears of War to make playing through its story more fun whilst still retaining its focus on story and character development. The emergence of truly great game narrative and a push to take artistic advantage of games' interaction does not mean that "fun" games will go away. What it does mean is that games don't necessarily have to be fun, whimsical distractions, and can instead provide an artistic canvas for exploring higher level questions, such as the illusion of free will (BioShock) or the ethics of cloning (Mass Effect).

Mass Effect 2 combines its great narrative with Gears of War's fun cover system.

What do you think of this growing dichotomy of game design? Share your thoughts in the comments.